Over
the holidays I've been thinking of my favorite books that I would recommend
under any circumstances, and one book that makes the list without question is Bitterblue, which I realize I haven't
actually reviewed here on Fantasy Book
Critic. So I'm addressing that oversight immediately.

I
love absolutely everything about this book. It's the third in a series, and you
do need to read the first two to get the most out of the third. It's not a
hardship: I enjoyed each, but while Bitterblue
is in the same series, it is not at all the same kind of book. It blew me away.

Bitterblue is the third (and
final, I think) installment in Kristin
Cashore's Graceling series. While I love this world, I'm fine with this
book being the last of it, because Cashore
has wrapped up the necessary loose ends. The first is Graceling, and the second is Fire.
Chronologically, Fire takes
placed earliest, followed by Graceling,
and Bitterblue is set eight years
after the events of Graceling. If you
haven't read the previous two, characters from previous books do appear in Bitterblue, but everyone's relevant
background is covered.

I
don't mean to discourage anyone from reading the previous books, because Cashore does some really interesting
things with them. But while I thought Graceling
was interesting and Fire even
more so, Bitterblue completely blew
me away.

Many
people haven't appreciated the pacing. Bitterblue
isn't exactly fast-paced, nor is it terribly linear, and those are what we
are trained to expect. Our protagonist has a problem, our protagonist is
overwhelmed by said problem, our protagonist decides to tackle said problem,
other forces get in the way, and our protagonist overcomes everything and
triumphs.

For
a while, Bitterblue isn't even sure
that there is a problem, or what the
nature of the problem is, and it keeps changing on her. She doesn't know that
she's supposed to deal with the problem, and then if she is, what she can possibly do? Unlike previous books, her unique
magic can't be part of the solution, because she doesn't have any magic.

So,
no, the book is not linear. Problems close around Bitterblue from all sides, and when she thinks she has a handle on
one, something else complicates it, and she is struggling to process
conflicting information from all around her and trying desperately to save her
people. And I love this, because I think the pacing of the book reflects Bitterblue's mental and emotional state—and
life. Bitterblue's problems and
goals are abstract, and so her approach is also abstract.

There
also isn't really an antagonist in Bitterblue,
because [BRIEF SPOILER ALERT] the source of all the problems was Leck, but he's been dead since Graceling. Life would be simpler if
there was a single villain at the source of all our problems and defeating said
villain would magically make everything better, but the problems remain, and
the victims, and somehow people have to deal when there is no one to defeat or
take the blame.

Despite
the inherent narrative difficulties, Bitterbluedoes triumph, and the end isn't just
satisfying, it's uplifting. In many ways, Bitterblue
is about dealing with grief — politically, socially, economically,
personally — and there is no simple answer for that. So, some people were
bothered by the pacing, but I don't think this book would work with any other
kind, and for me, it really worked.

Some
readers felt Cashore dwelled too
much on the ciphers. I loved the ciphers. They were fascinating, accessibly
explained, and they were incredibly tied into the plot, the world, the themes,
and Bitterblue, because Bitterblue is also about secrets. And
language: I love that a character is attempting to write the first dictionary,
and that we see the introduction of the very concept of a different language.

Some
people were bothered by the romantic endings in all of the Graceling books, but I appreciate that Cashore hasn't been pressured into having her heroines follow more
traditional understandings of what “happily ever after” means: namely, that it
must entail marriage and children. I'm really surprised by how many people seem
to be bothered by the heroines' choices — or what they perceive to be Cashore's heavy-handed authorial
intervention — because the heroines have very good and well-explained reasons
for their choices, and they nevertheless find love and happiness.

I
love how Cashore deals with issues
of what it means to be queen, for Bitterblue's
understanding of the world and her place and relationships within it, and
we understand exactly how hard it is. Bitterblue's
strengths as a character, and as a queen, are her compassion and wisdom, and
that's unusual enough in a protagonist to pull me in, but her slog through the
problems raised through the book is what makes me love her.

I
could keep talking about individual pieces that made everything work, but what
really struck me was the organic cohesiveness of this book, that everything was
inseparably intertwined and emerged organically. I'm not sure what else to
say. I think Bitterblue was
absolutely gorgeous.

2
comments:

I agree; I love this series, and Bitterblue comes as an unexpected, but surprisingly real main character. While Katsa makes a great main character in Graceling, she is a superstar, and we have to look up to her rather than commiserating with her. Bitterblue's problems, on the other hand, are foggy, much like our own problems much of the time. Thanks for the review!